Dallas Cowboys Blog

Scouting replacement refs has proven to be challenging for Cowboys coach Jason Garrett

The NFL has received plenty of backlash for using replacement referees to call games as the league continues to haggle with the locked-out officials at the bargaining table.

The uproar reached its peak Monday night after a questionable ruling on a Hail Mary pass gave Seattle a much-disputed 14-12 victory over Green Bay.

Many have made inflammatory comments about the situation. Cowboys coach Jason Garrett isn’t one of them. But he concedes that there are challenges with the new officials because they don’t have a track record. In the past, Garrett and his staff tried to identify tendencies with certain officiating crews and pass that information along to the players.

“It’s absolutely something we have done in the past,” he said. “We’ve studied all of the officials, all of the crews, what they’re most likely going to call, what they’re least likely going to call and we go through that with our team on Wednesday every week…There’s a whole history with those other guys.”

But with the replacement referees there isn’t enough data to draw any solid conclusions.